JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge in Mississippi has approved a
plea agreement that will allow a former University of Alabama basketball
player to avoid prosecution in a kidnapping case if he stays out of
trouble for two years.

U.S. District Judge William Barbour in Jackson approved the deferred prosecution for Devonta Pollard during a hearing Tuesday.

Prosecutors offered the 19-year-old Pollard the deal in exchange for
testimony against his mother, Jesse Mae Brown Pollard, who was convicted
last month.

Jesse Pollard was convicted last month of orchestrating a plot to
kidnap a 6-year-old relative in a dispute over a piece of land and a
portable storage shed in east Mississippi.

The girl was abducted in April from East Kemper Elementary School and released unharmed the next day.